Fred S. Naiden: Personal Background

I am an ancient historian at UNC Chapel-Hill, with interests in Greek politics and statecraft that led to the work of the late Sir Moses Finley, professor of ancient history at Cambridge University in England and perhaps the leading social historian of the ancient Greeks in the 20th century. From Finley’s work, which is in some arguable part Marxist, I was led to the study of his career, which included work at the American Russian Institute in the 1940s. My piece about the institute for UNZ was an outgrowth of this research.

No adequate scholarly treatment of the institute has ever been done. The relevant sources are scattered and recondite. I hope, though, that this piece will stimulate interest in this topic.